


That You Fear the Most

by ryrous



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-06-19
Updated: 2011-06-20
Packaged: 2017-10-20 13:38:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/213345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryrous/pseuds/ryrous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry and Hermione are invited to teach at Hogwarts (post-series) and have to contain another evil that has been terrorizing Hogwarts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Tabby on the Sill

**I always thought that the books left a lot unfinished, and I felt like there were SOO MANY things that JK Rowling did in the last two books that didn't make sense to me (Pairs, deaths, Colin Creevey, Really?) So this story is going to go in the direction that I thought the books would, but also i thought it would be fun to try to imagine what would happen after Voldemort was gone. I hope you like it :)**

 

* * *

"GET UP, GET UP! Honestly! The day wasn't made for you to sleep it away!" Molly Weasley screeched. Harry Potter opened his eyes and rubbed them. He was used to this kind of waking by now, And the effect of Mrs. Weasly's shouts had lessened on him, as it had long before done with the Weasley children.

Harry sat up and yawned, he hadn't slept much last night. He, Ron, Hermione and Ginny had spent ages on the roof of Big Ben just mugglewatching and being together while they could. Ginny would leave for Hogwarts in a few weeks so Harry had decided to squeeze as much out the summer as he possibly could before real life set in. Ron had been invited to stay with Charlie in Romania to study dragons for the year, and Ron had been absolutely thrilled. He had become hesitant, though, when he realized that Romania meant being far away from his family (and Harry) but more importantly, Hermione.

This summer he had been absolutely glued to her, to the point where Harry had become a little sick of him. Hermione and Ron should have been two people, but the way Ron had been acting he never got to spend time with either one without the other. Ginny was less dependant on him, so they managed to stay separate instead of morphing into one person. Hermione didn't seem to be so fond of her large red-headed tumor either, and by the end of the summer the whole house was tired of their bickering.

" _Honestly_ Ron, I'm going to the _bathroom!_ "

Hermione had been talking about trying to find a job at the ministry, but Harry didn't think any ministry job would be challenging enough for her. The problem with Hermione was that she was essentially good at everything (she knew it, too) and Harry thought she would just get bored with anything the ministry would offer. She liked to _learn_ rather than be tied to a single, monotonous task.

Harry stood up and put on his glasses, dressed, and went downstairs. Ginny was already seated at the table in the kitchen while Molly prepared breakfast. Ginny smiled at Harry and his half-dead appearance, which brightened up his morning considerably. A tabby cat sat on the window-sill.

Ron wandered tiredly down the stairs, still yawning with his hair in a mess. He tried to say something, but his yawn rendered it incomprehensible, so Ginny said:

"Pardon?"

"I don't remember," Ron replied and collapsed on the table, apparently still trying to sleep. Molly rapped him on the back of the head with her wooden spoon, which got him to sit up with a start.

"It's _rude_ to sleep when there's company, Ronald" She hissed at Ron, then addressing the tabby "Won't you join us, Headmistress?"

McGonagall jumped from the windowsill to the chair in front of her, transforming herself back into human form while doing so. Harry and Ginny sat up a little straighter and Ron looked like a ripe tomato from his embarassment.

"Good morning, Mrs. Weasley, " McGonagall said. "I assume Miss Granger will be joining us shortly?" Mrs. Weasley turned to Ginny

"Ginevra? Be a dear and go fetch her please," Molly said. Harry would have laughed if it had been appropriate. Though Mrs. Weasley was never as impatient with Ginny as she was with Ron, she was never as polite to any of her children as she was in front of McGonagall, nor did she ever call Ginny "Ginevra".

"Thank you," she called to Ginny's back, which was already disappearing up the stairs. For a few moments, McGonagall and Molly prattled idly while Ron and Harry only sat there awkwardly. It was strange that someone from their school life had all of a sudden appeared in their "real" one. The tension was broken a moment later when Ginny and Hermione appeared. Hermione looked bright eyed and rested, and for a moment Harry wondered if she hadn't given back her time turner after all, but was using it to get more sleep than the rest of them instead.

"Good morning Headmistress," She said, smiling, and sat down next to Ron, who next to her looked as if he had been hit by a train.

"Good morning, Miss Granger," McGonagall said with a nod. McGonagall had always been especially fond of Hermione and her intelligence. It suddenly struck Harry how similar she and Hermione were, intelligent, and with very strong ideals and opinions. Or at least, that's how McGonagall _seemed_.

Molly served her homemade crêpes while McGonagall explained her reason for being there.

"As you know, last year we had a less than ideal Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher" She said. The mood in the room darkened and faces hardened as everything became serious. McGonagall was referring to Amycus Carrow, who last year had taught a class more like "Dark Arts" then defense against them. Up until now, the events of last year had seemed dreamlike, imaginary. The dead had seemed less dead. Most of them anyway.

Harry shot a glance at Molly, whose face had contorted into a look trying to portray confusion while it was obviously a reaction from the absense of her son. The loss of Fred _did_ affect them all a little every day, but a small enough amount that they could all pretend it wasn't there. Of course nobody was surprised the days that Molly was found crying in the bedroom, or Mr. Weasley's smile was less cheery, but there was nothing to be done except to hurt and when it passed, to again pick up their lives until the next time they fell apart. Harry knew it would take a very long time for the Weasley parents or George to heal.

"As headmistress, the positions of our teachers are now at my discretion, as long as the ministry sees the candidate fit" McGonagall paused and looked down to cut her crêpe. Looking up again, she said: "I can think of no better teachers than those who have experienced real battle against the Dark Arts," She said, enunciating every word clearly and crisply, as if she enjoyed the feel of them against her tongue. "Namely, you three," She finished. It was very clear who "you three" were.

The silence that followed was broken by an excited squeal from Hermione.

"Yes! I will, I mean, we will, right Harry?" she said, tripping over her words from excitement.

"Er, well what about, er, Auror training?" he asked, also a little bewildered that at eighteen he could possibly be asked to teach schoolchildren. Hermione waved away his protest.

"You can do that whenever, we're going to be _professors!_ " She said, throwing her hands up in the air, exasperated at his hesitance. "Professors Granger and Potter—Ron what are _you_ going to do?" She asked, seemingly just remembering him.

"I er, don't know, I already told Charlie that I'd go to Romania" he mumbled, a little offended that Hermione had addressed Harry before him. Hermione's eyes narrowed.

"Are you _sure?_ " She asked, crossing her arms.

"Yeah, it's fine Hermione, I'm not a teaching type anyway, not like you and Harry" He said, a little disappointed. Harry couldn't see why Ron couldn't change his mind about Romania. Charlie wasn't the type to get offended that easily, and if it was such a great opportunity, why didn't Hermione insist that Ron go to Hogwarts? She probably didn't want him to have to give up something she knew he'd love, even if it meant being away from her, Harry decided. Also, there was some truth in what Ron was saying, in the days of the DA, Ron had been a student, not a teacher.

"So it's settled then, thank you, Headmistress." Hermione said, standing up from her chair.

"I assume you know what to bring?" McGonagall asked, finishing her breakfast and standing up as well. Harry had no idea, but Hermione nodded.

"Good," McGonagall said. She pushed in her chair, thanked Molly for the meal, and in a flourish of cat fur jumped out the kitchen window behind her. A few minutes later they heard the familiar pop of Apparation.

Ginny, who had been sitting quietly at the foot of the stairs jumped up with a start and threw her arms around Harry. She was talking very quickly and Harry could not understand what she was saying; only that she was excited to have him at school with her. Harry wasn't sure what he was going to do or how he was going to do it, but he had Hermione for that.

 

   


* * *

 **Next chapter soon, I was originally going to add something more exciting to this one, but it got sooo long**

 **Thanks for reading**

 **Please review! I love constructive criticism.**

 **-ryrous**


	2. The Death and the Candy Frog

Sybill Trelawney drank the last sip of her last bottle of sherry, and realizing this, she stood up from her office chair to go steal more from the kitchen. There was absolutely nothing to do these last summer weeks but drink, and drink she did. Preparing for students, pah! Preparing was for people who couldn't see the future, but it had always been this way, McGonagall or Dumbledore had always asked her to help Filch "prepare the school." Some years other teachers joined them, most years no one did. Why didn't the new DADA teacher have to "prepare?" she sighed.

As much as she complained, however, Trelawney loved Hogwarts, she loved McGonagall the way she had loved Dumbledore. Besides, there wasn't anything she was going to do at home but drink, and here she got free Sherry and company most days.

Trelawney hummed a tune as she waddled down the corridors, deciding to be cheerful rather than whiny. She hadn't been home in years, she realized, she had just stayed here. She was interrupted from her thoughts by that prickly sense on the back of her neck that told her she was being followed. She turned very suddenly with a jump, hoping she would startle whoever was behind her, but she did not see anyone. Sybill kicked out in front of her, remembering the talk that had gone around the school of Potter and his invisibility cloak, who knew if another student had one?

"I know you're there, you can come out now" she said, trying to sound knowing. Nobody appeared. Trelawney then remembered that the students would not arrive for another two weeks.

"Old melon giving out," she said to herself, chuckling; Trelawney had never met anyone as entertaining as herself. _It wasn't anything, It couldn't have been_ , she thought. However, a few minutes later she got the impression that someone was following her again. With a growing sense of urgency, she walked faster but the sense intensified, and Trelawney knew enough to trust her instincts. She broke out into a full run, praying she knew more about the castle's twists and turns than her pursuer. The usually pleasant fog the sherry put on her brain was starting to confuse her, to make her head spin, and all the while she could feel her pursuer bearing down on her. She headed for the dungeons; there were many secret passages there.

Thinking she may have lost whoever it was, she turned a corner all too fast. That was her fatal mistake.

Trelawney's cries for help were not heard by Filch, who was stroking Mrs. Norris in the Great Hall, sitting in the chair at the head of the room, pretending he was Headmaster. They weren't heard by McGonagall, either, sitting in her office doing paperwork for Lydia Fentle's enrollment.

Trelawney's gurgles were much too soft

* * *

The hustle and bustle of Kings Cross was especially pronounced this morning as a certain train started to fill at platform 9 3/4. A certain Professor Potter was wondering what could be at platform 9 1/4 if it even existed when he was woken from his musings by Molly's furious goodbye hug, which was then followed by goodbyes from the rest of the non-Hogwarts-attending Weasley clan and Teddy. The baby didn't really know what was going on, but Harry was sure he would be upset once he, Ginny, and Hermione were gone. That baby was, after all, very attached to him. Harry didn't worry though, because he knew Molly would be delighted to have a job to do, and she had plenty of experience with this one.

Ron and Hermione's goodbye was a bit awkward for the rest of the people present, so Harry and Ginny made sure their things made it onto the train. Harry noticed her watching Ron and Hermione's mushy farewell (more so from Ron's side then Hermione's) and grabbed hold of Ginny's hand to make sure she knew that he noticed her, too. As Hermione finally finished and walked toward them, Harry saw the Weasleys beginning to gather, and he could see the slightly bothered look on Ron's face. Harry knew it must be strange for Ron to not be accompanying them to Hogwarts, and he had to say he felt the same.

On the train, Harry noticed a few of the faces of the students. His students. He noticed three in particular: a dark haired boy with a maliciously pointed face, a tiny blonde girl who looked like she had years left before she would get to Hogwarts age, and a comically plump, homely girl with a clever face and forgetfully ordinary features.

Finding a compartment, the three stayed standing and waved at the Weasleys as the train started and started to pull out of the station. Ron ran and followed the train, waving, not wanting to miss his last chance to say goodbye. It reminded Harry of how Ginny had chased the train back in first year. Ron couldn't follow the train forever though, and soon he began to fade into the distance with the rest of King's Cross. Harry sat down and looked at the bushy haired-girl opposite him. She looked oddly small without her attachment, he thought.

Ginny took Harry's small drawstring bag from his lap and started to loosen the strings to see what was inside. Harry had packed his clothes, robes and wand into his suitcase, but had let Hermione manage the teaching supplies. He himself didn't know what was inside, as Hermione had disappeared at Diagon Alley, running here and there to get "everything they needed."

"So what is it you teachers carry anyway?" she asked, opening the bag slightly. Hermione snatched it away and closed it again with a firm look.

"I used lots of sizing charms to get everything in here," she said. "But if you open it, everything will fly out, and we'll spend years trying to get it all back in again."

"What on earth, Hermione?" Harry inquired.

"Just books, quills, robes, and more books" she answered casually. Harry nodded, he had expected something more magical, something he had never heard of. Something new. It occurred to Harry that he had been part of the magical world for quite some time now, there weren't as many things that he'd never heard of anymore.

"It's going to be so strange calling you professor, Harry," Ginny said, not furthering the previous conversation. Harry turned to her and noticed the faraway light in her eyes that she got whenever she was imagining something. There were a lot of things about Ginny like that, subtle little personality and behavior quirks that made her who she was. Harry loved it; it made her a more interesting person.

"What'll happen if I misbehave in class? Will I need a _time out,_ Professor Potter?" she asked, wagging her eyebrows at him. Harry wanted to come up with a return quip, but couldn't think of one fast enough to mask the red rising in his cheeks. Hermione snorted.

"Oh Ginny, _please_ do that more, he looks like a cherry!" she said, laughing. "Cherry _Harry_ " Ginny teased, still looking at him. Harry didn't know what to say, he wished he was better with spontaneity and words.

The girls had mercy, so they abandoned the game and prattled about the coming year, leaving Harry to his thoughts. Though it was a joke, Ginny really _would_ be his student. Harry hoped it wouldn't make things awkward. What if he had to fail her, would she be able to keep their personal and (for lack of a better word) professional lives separate? He didn't know. Harry knew nothing about teaching, except for the DA of course. How would he manage grading students he knew or liked? He would ask Hagrid, he decided, and hid the issue away in his brain.

As the trolley passed, Harry distractedly waved it away, earning a whine from Ginny. She wanted fizzing whizbees, she said, so Harry stood up to go get them for her.

The crow-faced boy from before was there, the black gelled-to-death spikes on his head only making him look more pointy. It was a very bad look for him, in Harry's opinion. Harry took an immediate dislike to the boy as he noted the rudeness with which he spoke to the little trolley lady. He wanted the frog things, he said, and the trolley lady gave him chocolate frogs, but no, those were wrong, he meant the peppermint ones.

"So sorry dear, I seem to be out of those," she said. Crow-face glared and threw down the chocolate frogs with disgust, reentering his compartment and slamming the door as hard as he could, leaving a resounding BANG! Harry and the lady winced. She bent down to pick up the frog, a little shaken from the boy's outburst. Harry picked it up for her before she got to it (it was taking the little old lady ages anyway) and bought what he needed, fizzing whizbees, Bertie Bott's every flavor beans, and toothflossing stringmints for Hermione.

The rest of the train ride was rather uneventful; Harry even dozed off for a while. When he woke, the train had already arrived, and Hermione and Ginny had been telling him to wake up and get his things.

Ginny had to take a student carriage while Harry and Hermione were to take one of the larger staff carriages, so they parted there. Inside Harry's carriage, there was a small, mousy woman with her arms crossed. She was looking out the window, her whole body pressed up against the side as if trying to look as small and unnoticeable as possible.

Hermione introduced Harry and herself. In a barely audible voice, the woman introduced herself as Kassandra Twender and told them that this would also be her first year of teaching. Though her head was turned towards them, Twender's body was still facing the window, her arms still crossed, as if she didn't want to offend her carriage mates by taking up any extra space. Hermione tried to chat with her (Hermione was rather chatty when excited) but there were ample silences as the woman answered Hermione's questions but didn't make effort to further the conversation.

 _How can this woman be a teacher, she's so shy!_ Harry wondered. He silently thanked Merlin as the awkward non-conversation faded into a silence that lasted the rest of the carriage ride.

Harry helped Hermione out of the carriage and dusted himself off. He looked up at the dark silhouette of the castle against the starry sky. This place had long been his home, but something about it just seemed… different now.

"It'll never be how it used to be, Harry," Hermione said, as if reading his mind. "That Hogwarts is dead and gone, it died along with Dumbledore, I think." Harry nodded. Hermione was right, she was always right. Harry had hoped that with the war behind them, things might return to how they had been. Hermione grabbed his hand and led him in through the heavy doors, Twender a step behind them.

* * *

In the Great Hall, Harry was hit with another wave of nostalgia. He had spent so many evenings here, eating till he was ready to burst. He had also seen, however, the bodies of so many people he cared about strewn on the floor. Lupin. Tonks. Even Snape, who had redeemed himself to Harry, in the end.

While Harry was again mulling things over in his head (this was a very thoughtful day for him, he realized) Hermione brought them over to the head table, where they both took their seats. McGonagall was sitting in the middle of the table, where the Headmaster always sat, and around her were a few of the teachers that had taught Harry: Sprout, Pince, Binns, Sinistra, and Vector, as well as Twender and a man Harry had never seen before. Twender sat on the end, as if trying to get away from everyone again.

"Where are Trelawney and Flitwick?" Harry whispered to Hermione as the students started filing into the Great Hall.

"Er, I saw Flitwick standing outside the Great Hall, I think he's giving the first years' orientation, and Trelawney's not here, Twender said she was teaching divination. Don't you listen?" She whispered back.

"Even if I had tried to, I wouldn't have heard her anyway," He said. Hermione "hmphed" and leaned back in her chair. McGonagall shot an expectant glance at them, and Harry remembered that he had to be professional now.

The tables were almost full, and Harry spotted Ginny sitting with a group of other Gryffindor seventh years. She was laughing and talking with her friends, who kept pointing to him and Hermione. Harry tried to sit up a little straighter and pretend to not see them.

Just then, the large doors opened again and Hagrid and Flitwick stepped into the Great Hall with first years coming in behind them in a straight line. Harry spotted the tiny blonde and the plump girl he had seen (who had been very hard to find due to her ordinariness). He scanned the room for Crow-Face. A second later, he found him at the Slytherin table. _Of course,_ he thought. Hagrid came up and sat beside him, smacking him on the back with a "well hello there, Professor"

The sorting was nothing really out of the ordinary. Flitwick stood at the front with the student list and called the names out, one by one. Agnes Meehan, the plump girl, was put into Ravenclaw.

"Lydia Fentle," Flitwick's voice rang out.

The tiny blonde stepped forward. Daintily, she sat down on the chair as the sorting hat was placed on her head.

The sorting hat seemed to take a long time mulling her over, speaking to her quietly as it had done with Harry so many years ago. Eventually, it called out "HUFFLEPUFF" and the usual clapping and congratulating followed.

After the sorting finally reached its conclusion, McGonagall gave her year start speech.

Thinking about the speeches Dumbledore had given, Harry's mind wandered again, and when McGonagall spoke about the staff additions Hermione had to yank him up with an "Oh get _up"_ out of the side of her mouth. Harry stood, shaken, while they were applauded by the students. Harry heard Hagrid's chuckle in the background.

"Though it would be easiest to avoid such unpleasant matters, this simply cannot be avoided, as the death of one of our beloved professors here has regrettably come to pass," McGonagall's voice echoed off the walls of the suddenly deathly quiet hall.

"I regret to inform you of the passing of Miss Sybill Trelawney, Divination Professor, who was an employee at this school for nearly twenty years, and a dear friend to many." Murmurs started among the students, but McGonagall silenced them with a hand.

If Trelawney was such a "dear friend" as McGonagall put it, Harry wondered why nobody seemed upset about her. The faces of all the witches and wizards at the head table were stone cold, not tearful. Hermione looked utterly shocked, her eyes open wide. Harry knew she had never liked Trelawney, but he knew how she would feel now that Trelawney was gone. She would feel guilty, like she always did.

"So I would like to ask of all of you, to remember not just Sybill Trelawney, but all others who have died or been wounded as of late, and to keep them in your thoughts this year. They died for you, for the future of the wizarding world. Remember that. That is all, you may eat."

The feast was absolutely ruined for Harry, not that he could pretend Trelawney had been so beloved by him, but because of the reminder her death carried.

 _We're never free from it_ , Harry thought _, death always wins._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked it, because it was a harder one to write (except the beginning, I loved writing from Trelawney POV,) the beginning chapters are always slower anyway, can't wait to get out into the story.
> 
> Please review,
> 
> -ryrous


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